Aaron Kliegman – Washington Free Beaconhttps://freebeacon.com
Mon, 21 Jan 2019 23:06:15 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.5The New York Times’ Favorite Conversationhttps://freebeacon.com/blog/new-york-times-favorite-conversation/
Mon, 21 Jan 2019 20:58:22 +0000https://freebeacon.com/?post_type=blog&p=1110607Michelle Alexander fancies herself a pioneer, heroically "breaking the silence" on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In her latest column, "Time to Break the Silence on Palestine," the New York Times columnist invokes the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., on the eve of his namesake holiday, to offer what she describes as a groundbreaking approach that—get this—blames Israel for the conflict.

]]>Michelle Alexander fancies herself a pioneer, heroically "breaking the silence" on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In her latest column, "Time to Break the Silence on Palestine," the New York Times columnist invokes the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., on the eve of his namesake holiday, to offer what she describes as a groundbreaking approach that—get this—blames Israel for the conflict.

Alexander describes how, at the Riverside Church in Manhattan on April 4, 1967, King spoke out against the Vietnam War, despite the backlash that he expected to receive. "A time comes when silence is betrayal," he said, and "that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam."

Apparently Alexander sees herself as a 21st century, female version of the great man, only this time her focus is on what she calls "Israel-Palestine."

King's remarks are "what I think about when I go over the excuses and rationalizations that have kept me largely silent on one of the great moral challenges of our time: the crisis in Israel-Palestine," Alexander writes.

"Until very recently," she continues, "the entire Congress has remained mostly silent on the human rights nightmare that has unfolded in the occupied territories."

"Many civil rights activists and organizations have remained silent as well, not because they lack concern or sympathy for the Palestinian people, but because they fear loss of funding from foundations, and false charges of anti-Semitism," she adds.

Then there are the students, fearful of expressing support for Palestinian rights because of, according to Alexander, the "McCarthyite tactics of secret organizations" that blacklist those who publicly support boycotts against the Jewish state. Because college campuses are, of course, known for their right-wing Zionist activists, silencing the few lone leftists among the faculty and student body.

Alexander says that, to honor King's message, we must condemn Israel's actions, before listing all of the usual misleading, if not outright false, allegations against the Jewish state.

In sum, Alexander says that it is finally time for people to call out Israel's "egregious abuses" against the Palestinians.

One cannot help but marvel at her courage. How refreshing to have someone view this issue with such fresh eyes!

To say that we need to have this conversation because no one has done so is absurd to the point of hilarity. Does Alexander not realize that opposing Israel, and consequently supporting the Palestinians, has become the left's great obsession, only rivaled by opposing President Trump? Countless far-left events end up, at some point, portraying the Israelis as the great monsters of our time and the Palestinians as the most oppressed. Alexander may actually be the last progressive to break her silence on this issue.

Even more striking is how little Alexander must read the newspaper for which she writes. It seems that nearly every week the Times publishes a story vilifying Israel and glorifying the Palestinians. A 2014 study by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America found that the Times is nearly seven times more likely to publish pieces "primarily critical of Israel than those primarily critical of the Palestinians," and that the paper is "twice as likely to publish opinion pieces that predominantly support the Palestinian narrative about which side deserves more sympathy or criticism than pieces that predominantly support the Israeli narrative."

The overall numbers do not always capture the shamefulness of individual articles. To give one example, take the Times‘ 4700-word story, published last month, on the death of a young Gazan medic last summer. The front-page article spans three and a half full pages of the paper and carries the bylines of five Times reporters and credits an additional five Times journalists and a photographer. How many pieces get that kind of treatment? The Times played the part of Palestinian propagandist more than serious journalist.

"The shooting appears to have been reckless at best, and possibly a war crime, for which no one has yet been punished," the Times reported, despite the fact that Israel said the killing was unintentional—and despite the fact that the Times described the "improbable" incident in which "the bullet hit the ground in front of the medics, then fragmented, part of it ricocheting upward and piercing [the medic's] chest."

The piece—supposedly a straight-news report—also downplayed essential context, describing the large-scale riots in Gaza of Palestinians trying to break the border fence with Israel to kill Jews as "protests."

Alexander's op-ed is not profound or original, and it certainly does not deserve to be associated with King. It is simply a sad continuation of a long-standing, virulently anti-Israel movement that flirts with anti-Semitism.

In recent years, progressives have adopted this movement, which supports measures to demonize the Jewish state, as their own. "Palestinian rights are being integrated into the broader progressive agenda," Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said last month. "It's becoming almost standard that if you support single-payer health care and climate justice, you'll support Palestinian rights."

Michelle Alexander, it seems, is late to the party, but thinks she's helping to make the guest list.

]]>The Mirage of Arab Military Mighthttps://freebeacon.com/culture/mirage-arab-military-might/
https://freebeacon.com/culture/mirage-arab-military-might/#respondSun, 20 Jan 2019 10:00:02 +0000https://freebeacon.com/?p=1109287Israel's victory in the Six-Day War; Chad's defeat over Libya in 1987; the Islamic State's humiliation of the Iraqi security forces—such episodes of Arab military failure, all too common since World War II, raise several important questions. Why the hell do Arab militaries perform so badly in war? Why do they lose when, by all objective measures, they should win? And when they win, why are their victories so small?

]]>Why do Arab militaries perform so badly in war? Israel's victory in the Six-Day War, Chad's defeat over Libya in 1987, the Islamic State's humiliation of the Iraqi security forces—why do they lose when, by all objective measures, they should win? And when they win, why are their victories so small?

These questions are not just academic. Indeed, their answers are central to American foreign policy in the Middle East, for today and for the future.

Go back to May 2014, when then-President Barack Obama told a graduating class of West Point cadets that training foreign soldiers was central to his strategy on counterterrorism. "We have to develop a strategy that matches this diffuse threat—one that expands our reach without sending forces that stretch our military too thin or stir up local resentments," Obama said. "We need partners to fight terrorists alongside us." His idea was to deploy small numbers of military trainers and advisers to the Middle East and elsewhere to assist local forces, keeping the American footprint to a minimum.

More than four years later, President Donald Trump has continued this approach, which, along with his decision to withdraw American troops from Syria, indicate that the United States will need to rely on Middle Eastern forces to do their own fighting. Given that the United States will still have vital interests in the Middle East to protect, Washington will need to care even more about the effectiveness of Arab armed forces.

Enter Kenneth Pollack, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Pollack's new book, Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness, seeks to explain the reasons for Arab military weakness since World War II and why the same problems are consistent across the Arab world. Sweeping in its scope yet accessible to the layman, Armies of Sand is a remarkable scholarly achievement that should be required reading for anyone involved in forming American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Arab armed forces have performed poorly in numerous areas of warfare. These problems—too many to list here—range from poor tactical leadership by junior officers to poor strategic leadership by generals, from mismanagement of information to struggles handling weapons. Other problems include unit cohesion, terrible equipment maintenance, and sub-par training.

Pollack identifies four theories that experts have proposed to explain the weaknesses of Arab armed forces: reliance on Soviet-style doctrine and military methods; poor civil-military relations and the "excessive politicization of Arab militaries resulting from the constant coups—and coup-proofing—endemic to the Arab states"; economic factors, particularly the "chronic underdevelopment of the Arab states throughout the post-World War II era"; and "patterns of behavior derived from Arab culture."

"Although numerous observers have written books, articles, and papers arguing for one explanation or another, no one has ever looked at all of them collectively to try to deduce which are wrong and which right; whether these recurrent patterns of Arab military ineffectiveness could be traced back to just one overarching source, or a combination of some or all," Pollack writes. "No one has ever tried to sift through them and figure out which ones hold water, and which are just hogwash. That is the purpose of this book."

Pollack's first takeaway is that relying on Soviet military doctrine is not the cause of the Arabs' military problems. To the contrary, the Soviets were more helpful than hurtful. Regardless, there was no correlation between an Arab military's reliance on Soviet methods and its performance on the battlefield.

Second, politicization was a problem, but not the most important one. It definitely hurt the effectiveness of Arab armed forces in many ways, but "deficiencies in tactical leadership, tactical information management, air operations, weapons handling, and maintenance persisted regardless of how politicized or professional they were."

Third, economic underdevelopment was similarly an "element of modern Arab military ineffectiveness, and arguably an important one—just not the most important one." None of the non-Arab militaries that Pollack examined experienced the same difficulties that were the greatest problems of the Arab armed forces.

The main source of Arab military ineffectiveness is culture. "It seems unlikely that it is mere coincidence that the most damaging problems that Arab armed forces have suffered in battle just happen to conform perfectly to patterns of behavior emphasized by the dominant Arab culture," Pollack writes. "It gets even harder to buy given that Arab organizations in other walks of life experience precisely the same patterns of behavior as their armies, despite the fact that those other organizations were not trained by the Soviets, nor were they subject to coup-proofing or other forms of politicization, nor did they behave like similar organizations in other developing countries."

Pollack identifies key aspects of Arab culture relevant to the book: conformity, centralization of authority, deference to authority and passivity, group loyalty, manipulation of information, atomization of knowledge, personal courage, and ambivalence toward manual labor and technical work. One can see how these values and behaviors will negatively affect military performance, especially the most glaring problem for Arab armed forces: poor tactical leadership from junior officers. Consistently, these officers fail to show any initiative or creativity—they rarely if ever adapt quickly to changing circumstances in battle. This makes perfect sense, though, if one considers these soldiers were trained to conform and defer to authority. This stands in stark contrast to the Israeli military, whose soldiers were raised in the "Start-Up Nation," which encourages innovation from all ranks.

The education system in Arab societies drilled in these values to the point that they became central to soldiers' behavior. "Typical Arab educational practices relentlessly inculcated the values, preferences, and preferred behavior—the culture—of the wider society," Pollack writes.

Pollack also explains that Arab military programs are modeled on the educational methods of the larger society, reinforcing certain patterns of behavior and conditioning soldiers to act and think in "ways that reflect the values and priorities of the dominant culture."

Pollack's findings present hurdles for the United States, which has spent decades trying to build more effective Arab militaries. The logic behind this approach is simple: Partners in the region can act as force multipliers for Washington, lessening the burden on the American military. When these efforts backslide, however, the United States often has to deploy more of its own soldiers or, at the very least, invest more resources to help the locals fight. If Arab culture is the main source of the Arabs' military woes, then sending their leaders to American military schools will not be sufficient, nor will more training. The United States can take certain steps, some of which Pollack discusses, to make moderate, but still significant, progress, but anything more would require broader changes in Arab society—a much taller task.

Another related problem for Washington is that its Arab allies cannot be expected to counter the greatest threats in the region: Iran, Iran's proxies, and Sunni jihadist groups like ISIS. The Iraqi Army's breakdown in 2014 proves this point for the latter. The United States is effectively seeking an unofficial alliance of Arab states (and Israel) to counter Iran's aggression in the Middle East. It may give Arab states billions of dollars in military aid and sophisticated weapons, but these countries have far fewer soldiers on whom to rely in a conflict with the Islamic Republic, and those whom they have are less battle-tested. Only Egypt and Turkey have comparable numbers, but the former is weak and the latter has close economic relations with Tehran. Beyond conventional strength, Iran is also much better than the Arabs at training foreign fighters and creating proxy forces.

Pollack makes a crucial point: The Middle East is going through unprecedented changes—social, economic, technological, and political. This transformation will affect Arab culture and may even "benefit Arab armies in combat." Additionally, warfare in the 21st century is changing. It is possible that the Arabs will adapt better as the world moves from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. The future is uncertain, but Arab militaries could become more effective.

The United States should care about the effectiveness of Arab armed forces, but the reality is that a sustainable security system in the Middle East requires active American military power on the ground. The United States should work to strengthen allies, but that is not sufficient. History proves that when America is not actively engaged in the Middle East, it will inevitably be forced to return to the region and in a more forceful way. The United States must decide whether it will lead in the Middle East or be an uninvolved bystander. If Washington chooses the latter, it better prepare itself for the inevitable disaster to come.

]]>https://freebeacon.com/culture/mirage-arab-military-might/feed/0Iran and the Palestinians: Bonded Through Hatehttps://freebeacon.com/blog/iran-palestinians-bonded-through-hate/
Fri, 18 Jan 2019 20:57:58 +0000https://freebeacon.com/?post_type=blog&p=1109647When one reads about how Iran's aggression in the Middle East causes so much chaos, remember that the Palestinians helped build that machine of war, more than four decades ago.

]]>On Thursday, Hamas said that it had allocated new apartment homes funded by Iran in the Gaza Strip to Palestinian former prisoners who had been held in Israeli jails. Why are the Iranians paying for apartments in a little coastal enclave of two million people on the other side of the Middle East? For the same reason that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recently said that the Islamic Republic cannot give up its "divine duty" to support Palestinians and that their "final victory … will be realized" in the "not-so-distant future": the Islamic Republic seeks Israel's destruction and views the Palestinians as an effective vehicle through which to achieve that goal. Moreover, Iran supports the Palestinians, especially Hamas, to expand its regional influence.

It is no secret that opposing Israel is fundamental to the Islamic Republic's ideology, driving many decisions of Iranian foreign policy. Earlier this year, for example, Khamenei called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that must be "removed and eradicated." Iran's support for the Palestinians goes far beyond rhetoric, however. Indeed, Iran transfers weapons and $70 million each year to Hamas and another $30 million to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terrorist group.

This support only scratches at the surface of the Iranian-Palestinian relationship. Both sides have worked together for decades, even before the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Tony Badran, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, details this important history in a new, must-read article for Tablet magazine. One of the more interesting details that may surprise some readers is that the Palestine Liberation Organization and its late former chairman, Yasser Arafat, played integral roles in the formation of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But Arafat and the PLO's involvement did not stop there.

The relationship between the Iranian revolutionary factions and the Palestinians began in the late 1960s, in parallel with Arafat's own rise in preeminence within the PLO …

[D]uring the 1970s, Lebanon became the site where the major part of the Iranian revolutionaries' encounter with the Palestinians played out …

The number of guerrillas that trained in Lebanon with the Palestinians was not particularly large. But the Iranian cadres in Lebanon learned useful skills and procured weapons and equipment, which they smuggled back into Iran …

The PLO did establish close working ties with the [faction of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] …

Three figures in particular from that camp were active in Lebanon, working closely with the PLO [including] … Mohammad Montazeri, son of senior cleric Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, and a militant who had a leading role in developing the idea of establishing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps once the revolution was won.

The Lebanese terrorist and PLO operative Anis Naccache … takes personal credit for the idea. Naccache claims that Jalaleddin Farsi [a Khomeinist] approached him specifically and asked him directly to draft the plan to form the main pillar of the Khomeinist regime.

The formation of the IRGC may well be the greatest single contribution that the PLO made to the Iranian revolution …

Badran also describes how Arafat "saw a chance to play the middleman between Iran and the Arabs, and to encourage them to eschew conflict with each other in favor of supporting the Palestinians in their fight against Israel." But Arafat's attempt to play at politics, along with various efforts to meddle in Iranian affairs and the onset of the Iran-Iraq War, doomed the relationship (although Arafat asked years later for weapons to use against Israel).

In the end, while Arafat's grand plan failed,

his wish to see Iran back the Palestinian armed struggle is now a fact, as Tehran has effectively become the principal, if not the only, sponsor of the Palestinian military option though its direct sponsorship of Islamic Jihad and its sustaining strategic and organizational ties with Hamas.

By forging ties with the Khomeinists, Arafat unwittingly helped to achieve the very opposite of his dream. Iran has turned the Palestinian factions into its proxies, and the PLO has been relegated to the regional sidelines.

Badran's piece is not only fascinating, but also important to help understand Iran's support for the Palestinians today. This long and complicated history helped forge a relationship out of shared hate—hate for Israel. There have been many ups and downs in the relationship over the years, but that antipathy has always drawn them back together. The Palestinians need support to fight a more powerful enemy, and Iran needs proxies so it does not have to send its soldiers to the front lines.

The Iranian-Palestinian relationship should be a clear sign that an independent Palestinian state, were it ever to come to fruition, would almost inevitably become, to some extent, a vassal to Iran, serving the interests of the Islamic Republic. Western leaders should keep this in mind when they consider ambitious steps to move toward a two-state solution.

Badran's article also serves as an important reminder. When one reads about how Iran's aggression in the Middle East causes so much chaos, remember that the Palestinians helped build that machine of war, more than four decades ago.

]]>This week, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a left-wing organization that seeks to undermine public support for Israel, released a statement explaining why it opposes Zionism. The statement is comprised of shameful lies about the Jewish state, but its words should be taken seriously, for they epitomize the anti-Zionist attitude toward Israel.

JVP claims that it is "guided by a vision of justice, equality, and freedom for all people," and that Zionism has, in contrast to those ideals, established "an apartheid state where Jews have more rights than others" and Palestinians face egregious discrimination. In reality, however, such anti-Zionism is the most important and influential form of anti-Semitism today.

Anti-Zionism is, by definition, the same as anti-Semitism. Historically, Zionism was a political movement that sought to reestablish a Jewish national home in the land of Israel. Once that goal was realized in 1948, being a Zionist meant, and still means, supporting the survival of Israel as a prosperous Jewish state. Consequently, being an anti-Zionist means opposing the survival of Israel as a prosperous Jewish state.

Anti-Zionists do not necessarily seek the destruction of Israel through violence. But anti-Zionists do, at the very least, seek to reverse the Zionist project, undermining Israel to the point that it effectively ceases to exist as we have come to recognize it, with, as I have previously written, the disastrous "implications for Israeli Jews, who live in a region in which most governments have shown no qualms about slaughtering Jews," or watching others slaughter them.

Even if anti-Zionists do not wish violence on Israel's Jews, that is precisely what their vision would lead to. "There's a real-life Jewish state with millions of Jews loyal to it," Yoram Hazony, president of the Herzl Institute, recently wrote on Twitter. "The Jews here are not going to give it up in exchange for any other political entity your imagination can concoct. The chances of dismantling this state without wholesale killing of Jews: Zero." In other words, the only way, ultimately, to replace Israel with Palestine, or a bi-national state, or whatever else anti-Zionists may want, is to fight the Jewish state, and therefore kill large numbers of Jews. This is, after all, a matter of national survival. Some people, perhaps the leaders of JVP, may be too ignorant to understand this truth, but ignorance is no excuse to absolve what are effectively calls for large-scale murder.

Anti-Zionism does more to justify and inspire hatred and persecution of Jews than any other force today. Just look at the millions of people in the Middle East who seek to murder Jews but couch their desires in the language of anti-Zionists—the Israeli "occupation," Palestinian suffering, etc.

Anti-Zionists invoke the exact same canards against Israel that anti-Semites have invoked against Jews for millennia. One should not define anti-Semitism as hatred and persecution of Jews; rather, anti-Semitism is, to paraphrase Bernard Lewis, about assigning restrictive, disadvantageous double standards to Jews and, more importantly, attributing to them a cosmic, Satanic evil, the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else. Consider the language used by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), who in 2012 tweeted, "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel." The tweet, which Omar wrote during an Israeli military offensive in Gaza, is still online. Just replace the word "Israel" with "Jews," and Omar would fit right in with the most outspoken Jew-haters of the Dark Ages.

Almost as remarkable is how Omar defended her tweet this week. When pressed on television to explain her choice of words, Omar responded, "I remember when that was happening, watching TV and really feeling as if no other life was being impacted in this war, and those unfortunate words were the only words I could think about expressing at that point."

Omar added that there is a "difference" between criticizing a military action by a government that has "exercised really oppressive policies" and attacking "particular people of faith." She defended her tweet by employing the same language that anti-Zionists use to attack Israel.

Because anti-Zionism targets the Jewish state rather than the Jewish people, it is acceptable in public forums.

Of course one can criticize Israel without necessarily being anti-Semitic. The problem is that anti-Zionists so often go beyond legitimate criticism, throwing out outrageous charges of genocide and apartheid to demonize and de-legitimize the Jewish state. Such language is part of an effort to wage political warfare, not to exercise one's right to freedom of expression.

The great irony of anti-Zionism is that its adherents seek precisely what drove Jews to push Zionism in the first place: a Jewish people without a national home, at the mercy of the forces that sought either to kill or expel them for so long. That is why the fundamental purpose of Israel is to protect Jews, to serve as a place of refuge with a standing military. To reject Zionism is to reject the security of the Jewish people.

]]>From Caliphate to Insurgency: ISIS Is Not Going Awayhttps://freebeacon.com/blog/isis-is-not-going-away/
Wed, 16 Jan 2019 19:51:28 +0000https://freebeacon.com/?post_type=blog&p=1107709In any war, the enemy gets a say in when the fighting stops. The Islamic State made clear on Wednesday that it is not done fighting the United States, nor the wider civilized world.

]]>In any war, the enemy gets a say in when the fighting stops. The Islamic State made clear on Wednesday that it is not done fighting the United States, nor the wider civilized world.

ISIS quickly claimed responsibility for an explosion in the city of Manbij in northern Syria, saying through its news agency that a suicide bomber targeted American soldiers on a routine patrol.

The spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve, the American-led coalition against ISIS, confirmed that American service members were killed in the blast, but did not specify how many. Media reports indicate that at least three or four troops died. It is unclear how many Syrian civilians or allied forces were also killed.

It is probably not a coincidence that the attack occurred just weeks after President Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw American troops from Syria. When announcing the withdrawal, Trump said the U.S. had defeated ISIS in Syria, "[his] only reason for being there."

The bombing is a sober reminder that ISIS is not defeated and remains a threat. It is doubtful that the U.S., or anyone else, knows the exact number of ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria, but no public estimate is close to zero. In August, the United Nations released a report saying that ISIS still had up to 20,000 to 30,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria and "hundreds of millions" of dollars to use. If those figures were true, that would mean that ISIS suffered no appreciable net loss of fighters since August 2014, when then-President Barack Obama first ordered airstrikes against the terrorist group. The month after airstrikes began, the CIA assessed that ISIS had between 20,000 and 31,500 members across Iraq and Syria.

On Dec. 19, the day of Trump's announcement, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve estimated that ISIS still had 2,000 to 2,500 fighters just in Hajin, the group's final territorial stronghold in Syria.

Many of ISIS' top leaders and important middle-ranked men presumably remain alive. Moreover, ISIS has, from the last week of July through mid-December, claimed 1,922 operations around the world, according to Thomas Joscelyn. Nearly half of those operations, 946, occurred in Iraq, while another 599 occurred in Syria. Many of the group's so-called provinces also carried out these operations, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan and in Sinai.

According to another tally by Michael Knights, ISIS launched 1,271 attacks in just Iraq in the first 10 months of 2018, including 135 attempted mass-casualty attacks. Additionally, the group attempted to "overrun 120 Iraqi security force checkpoints or outposts and executed 148 precise killings of specifically targeted individuals such as village mukhtars, tribal heads, district council members, or security force leaders."

These actions are all part of ISIS' new strategy, which involves returning to a full-blown insurgency. It is true that the group's so-called caliphate, its physical contiguous proto-state in Iraq and Syria, has collapsed. The American-led coalition has battered the terrorist group and forced its members to go underground. But ISIS has been planning for this outcome since as early as May 2016. As Hassan Hassan described in a recent report, ISIS' "post-caliphate strategy is to target Sunnis that collaborate with government forces or other insurgent groups using hit-and-run tactics and targeted assassinations, using as its base desert areas … The group will continue to model its [strategy] on what it is convinced worked the last time it was driven underground in 2008-09, [after the American surge in Iraq]."

Policymakers in Washington should also not forget that ISIS still seeks to attack Western targets. On Monday, for example, the group's propaganda arm disseminated a new propaganda poster showing the ISIS flag flying atop London's Big Ben landmark.

Most leaders in Washington and the American people seem to recognize the need to combat ISIS, even if they do not have an appetite for any further military engagements in the Middle East. The United States must continue to lead a global coalition to fight ISIS, to ensure its sustained defeat. That goal, articulated by every relevant top member of the Trump administration, has not yet been achieved.

The chief problem with Washington's military actions in the broader Middle East in recent years has not been overreach, but rather a lack of commitment. Too often the U.S. signals a desire to leave before the enemy has accepted defeat. Such rhetoric and actions embolden terrorist groups and other enemies to endure, no matter the cost, because, in the end, they can outlast the Americans. To prevent fights from dragging on indefinitely, the U.S. needs to signal that, counterintuitively, it is willing to fight indefinitely.

The cold truth is that the fight against ISIS and other jihadist groups is multi-generational. There is no clear end date, and when one group disappears, another one will be ready to take its place. This war on terror—to resurrect an old phrase—requires consistent vigilance. There is no need for massive numbers of American troops to be deployed. But there is a need for a small number of them, to lead allies in a fight that we cannot afford to lose.

]]>When Condemning Anti-Semitism Is Just Too Muchhttps://freebeacon.com/blog/when-condemning-anti-semitism-too-much/
Tue, 15 Jan 2019 21:40:44 +0000https://freebeacon.com/?post_type=blog&p=1107085On January 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump's inauguration, millions of people took to the streets across the country to protest the 45th president and support a host of progressive causes. The Women's March, as the protests were called, became a broader, unified movement of the political left, and the darling of so many in the media and Democratic politicians who called for resistance against societal "oppression" in the age of Trump.

]]>On January 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump's inauguration, millions of people took to the streets across the country to protest the 45th president and support a host of progressive causes. The Women's March, as the protests were called, became a broader, unified movement of the political left, and the darling of so many in the media and Democratic politicians who called for resistance against societal "oppression" in the age of Trump.

Fast-forward two years, and the Women's March has fallen from grace. Accusations of anti-Semitism against the leaders of the Women's March have devastated the movement. Indeed, many local march organizations recently had trouble fundraising and were forced to cancel or alter their planned marches. Others splintered from the national group and now note on their websites that they are unaffiliated with it. These troubles reached a new low this week, when the Democratic National Committee withdrew its support for the Women's March, following the example of several other prominent left-wing organizations.

This trend has not caused the movement's leaders to rethink some of their actions. Just look at Women's March co-founder Tamika Mallory, who on Monday failed to condemn Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan for his virulent anti-Semitic comments.

Farrakhan has compared Jews to termites, warned against "Satanic Jews who have infected the whole world with poison and deceit," and has described Adolf Hitler as a "very great man," among countless other remarks.

Appearing on ABC's "The View," Mallory defended her decision to label Farrakhan as the GOAT, an acronym for the "greatest of all time," in a previous post on social media. "I didn't call him the ‘greatest of all time' because of his rhetoric; I called him the ‘greatest of all time' because of what he's done in black communities," she said.

"I don't agree with these statements," Mallory said. "At the end of the day—"

"But won't you condemn them?" McCain interjected

"No, no, no. To be very clear, it's not my language. It's not the way that I speak," Mallory responded. "And I think it is very clear over the 20 years of my own personal activism, my own personal track record, who I am, and I should never be judged through the lens of a man."

Mallory and her three Women's March co-chairs—Bob Bland, Carmen Perez, and Linda Sarsour—have been unable to escape their close ties to and refusal to condemn Farrakhan. The nefarious details of their unholy alliance with one of America's leading anti-Semites have been widely reported—from words of praise to smiling selfies.

Denouncing anti-Semitism should be so easy, especially for leaders of a progressive movement that supposedly champions equality and social justice. Unless it is politically inconvenient to do so, or, worse, those called upon to make the denouncements hold, in some respects, similar conspiratorial thoughts. And here is the bigger problem.

The accusations of anti-Semitism against the Women's March leadership are not just about Farrakhan. Indeed, the movement's leaders have tried to redefine what it means to be a feminist. Sarsour, for example has said that Zionists, those who support the survival of Israel as a prosperous Jewish state, cannot be feminists. Moreover, Tablet magazine reported last month that, in 2016, Perez and Mallory said that "Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people—and even, according to a close secondhand source, claimed that Jews were proven to have been leaders of the American slave trade." Perez and Mallory denied making the comments, but one of the women present for the comments confirmed the report.

Anti-Semitism is somehow not viewed in the same dark light as other forms of bigotry. Imagine replacing all of the accusations against Mallory and her comrades with "black" or "woman" or "Hispanic" rather than "Jew" and "anti-Semitism." Would they be so reluctant to proclaim full-throated denunciations? I doubt it.

Of course devout supporters of the Women's march accuse the Jews of loyalty to outside, nefarious forces, or of using the charge of anti-Semitism to avoid criticism and protect their interests.

The Women's March, and increasingly the broader progressive movement, is becoming hostile territory for Jews. Those who remain loyal soldiers are either unable to see what is happening or are so self-righteous that they genuinely do not believe their side is capable of what they are accused of; anti-Semitic incidents are dismissed outliers, rather than central to a larger ideology.

Regardless, Mallory showed on Monday that condemning anti-Semitism is just too much, continuing the center-left's slow and painful excommunication of the Women's March. But of course the mainstream center-left does not seem to be the future of left-wing politics in America. The passion, the energy, the loudest voices—those all reside in the progressive movement, whose influence expands as the more centrist Old Guard rolls over in submission.

]]>A Cold Start to Nuclear War in South Asiahttps://freebeacon.com/blog/a-cold-start-to-nuclear-war-in-south-asia/
Mon, 14 Jan 2019 22:13:02 +0000https://freebeacon.com/?post_type=blog&p=1106407It is easy to see how a large-scale terrorist attack on Indian soil tied to Pakistan, whose military and intelligence services have links to countless jihadist groups, could trigger Cold Start, which in turn could trigger Pakistan using a nuclear weapon. From there, who knows what would happen?

]]>The number of foreign-policy challenges facing President Trump is daunting—from a nuclear-armed North Korea to a revanchist Russia, from an imperialist Iran to an increasingly belligerent China. These global threats garner numerous headlines each day, and deservedly so. Amid this chaos, however, one conflict receives too little attention in Western media.

South Asia is home to the ongoing rivalry between India and Pakistan, the international dispute most likely to produce, in the near term, a war between two large, powerful countries in which the belligerents use nuclear weapons. Indeed, the neighboring countries, each with well over 100 nuclear warheads, have gone to war four times since 1947, in addition to several other standoffs, skirmishes, and crises that nearly escalated into war. A primary reason this bilateral tension is so concerning today is that both India and Pakistan have adopted military doctrines that make another war—a large-scale one with nuclear weapons involved—all too foreseeable. A new development from India just last week provides the latest reminder of this reality.

Gen. Bipin Rawat, chief of the Indian army, announced last Thursday that the military is launching war games next month to test "structures geared towards sudden and swift offensives into enemy territory by ‘integrated battle groups,' or IBGs, reported Ajai Shukla, an Indian journalist and former army colonel. These new structures will be "validated" in military exercises on the ground in May.

Rawat's comments are sure to raise eyebrows in Pakistan, because the proposed IBGs are central to India's offensive military doctrine known as "Cold Start," an attack plan that involves a quick, limited penetration into Pakistan, rather than a more ambitious invasion and occupation. The operation would be implemented in a crisis, likely in response to a large-scale terrorist attack that India believes is tied to Pakistan. According to a research paper by the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank based in India, the Cold Start doctrine envisions

a shallow thrust offensive into Pakistan to capture territory "that can be used in post-conflict negotiations to extract concessions from Islamabad." This offensive ingress is to be executed using a small number of division sized ‘integrated battle groups‘ [emphasis added] within three to four days of political clearance and mobilization orders. Furthermore, proponents argue, the limited aim of capturing a small sliver of Pakistani territory—in contrast to bisecting that country—will guarantee that Pakistan's nuclear redlines are not crossed.

"Hopefully, after [exercises in May], we will go to the government and take their sanction [to restructure traditional divisions into permanent IBGs]," Rawat said last week.

For years, analysts have debated whether Cold Start is a functional, officially endorsed strategy within India; the Indian political and military establishments have not officially sanctioned the doctrine. In January 2017, however, Rawat appeared to acknowledge the existence of Cold Start.

"The Cold Start doctrine exists for conventional military operations," Rawat said. "Whether we have to conduct conventional operations for such strikes is a decision well-thought through, involving the government and the Cabinet Committee on Security."

It was the first time that an actively serving Indian official acknowledged the doctrine's existence. Rawat's more recent comments seem to solidify further that Cold Start is very real, even if it has not yet been fully implemented.

Even more troubling than Cold Start is Pakistan's strategy to counter it. As I wrote in 2016:

Pakistan's response has been to build low-yield tactical nuclear weapons. They are meant to be an asymmetric advantage to overcome India's conventional military superiority if Cold Start is put into action. Pakistan sees them as credible deterrents against Indian incursions because of their lower yield compared to strategic weapons. Moreover, tactical nuclear weapons offer, in the minds of Pakistani leaders, a way to ensure India cannot control escalation dominance if a crisis spirals into a conflict. To bolster its deterrence posture, Pakistan has refused to adopt a no-first use nuclear policy, unlike India–although New Delhi has said it would respond to a Pakistani nuclear attack with an overwhelming second strike.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhary confirmed this strategy in October 2015, when he told reporters that Pakistan built tactical nuclear weapons in response to India's Cold Start doctrine and would use them if necessary.

It is easy to see how a large-scale terrorist attack on Indian soil tied to Pakistan, whose military and intelligence services have links to countless jihadist groups, could trigger Cold Start, which in turn could trigger Pakistan using a nuclear weapon. From there, who knows what would happen? Would it even be possible to control escalation?

Perhaps this is all an overreaction to one Indian general's comments. But there is growing evidence that Cold Start is real and may be operational soon enough.

In 2000, Bill Clinton called the Indian subcontinent the "most dangerous place in the world." That statement remains true today. Even though India and Pakistan may not get all the headlines in the New York Times, they better be on the Trump administration's radar.

]]>Iran and the Taliban: Partners Against the United Stateshttps://freebeacon.com/blog/iran-taliban-partners-against-u-s/
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 21:42:58 +0000https://freebeacon.com/?post_type=blog&p=1105672As the Trump administration debates whether to withdraw from Afghanistan, policymakers in Washington should remember that Iran, not just the Taliban, stands to gain from an American retreat.

]]>Wherever there is chaos, violence, and suffering in the broader Middle East, Iran is likely present. Tehran has its malign tentacles entwined in virtually every conflict in the region—from Gaza, to Yemen, to Syria, and beyond. One such conflict is the war in Afghanistan, which the media rarely discuss in conjunction with Iran. Yet the Islamic Republic plays an important role in Afghanistan—one that is disruptive and that threatens American interests. As the Trump administration debates whether to withdraw from Afghanistan, not just the Taliban but also Iran stands to gain from an American retreat.

Iranian activities in Afghanistan gained renewed attention over the past two weeks, after Adm. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, confirmed for the first time late last month that Iran held talks with the Taliban, noting that the Afghan government was aware of the discussions. Days later, Iran also confirmed that the Taliban had visited Tehran for a second round of talks on ending the conflict in Afghanistan; the Taliban said they discussed Afghanistan's "post-occupation situation" with the Iranians. Then on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said during a visit to India that the Taliban must have a role, but not a "dominant" one, in Afghanistan's future. Iran's top diplomat also acknowledged that his country has "unofficial intelligence" contacts with the Taliban, adding that the Islamist group occupies areas by the border between Iran and Afghanistan.

Senior Afghan government officials took great offense to Zarif's comments. "If Iran believes in talks, it should pay attention to its domestic problems," Shah Hossein Mortazavi, deputy spokesperson of the Afghan president, wrote in a Facebook post that was later deleted. "These days they [Iran's Foreign Ministry] act in the role of Taliban spokesmen."

"Certainly, such statements create division between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and this would have a negative impact on our relations," added Sibghatullah Ahmadi, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Our Iranian friends; we may or may not bring in Taliban. But thank you for your advice. To reciprocate the neighborly goodwill, I call on you to share power with Mujaheddin Khalq and NCRI, release Karobi and Musavi and make peace with Saudi. Because we believe it is good for you.

The U.S. has sought to force the Taliban to negotiate a peace settlement with the Afghan government. But the Taliban, which refers to itself as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, has consistently rejected talks with Kabul. The group seeks to topple the American-backed Afghan government and to re-impose strict Islamic law in Afghanistan as it existed under their totalitarian rule before the U.S. ousted them in 2001. That outcome does not seem so far-fetched now that the Taliban is engaged in diplomatic talks with an array of global powers, including the United States, and has the upper hand militarily.

Iran's recent comments on the Taliban are significant; in the past, Tehran has denied links to the group. It seems that, following reports indicating President Donald Trump wants to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan, Iran sees a golden opportunity to have a more public partnership with the Taliban and secure its interests inside the war-torn country.

Iran and the Taliban had a relationship before 9/1/ that included arms sales, even as both sides were bitter rivals. Since 9/11, however, Tehran has helped the Taliban in numerous ways, especially in recent years. As I previously wrote:

Since American troops entered Afghanistan in 2001, Iran has given consistent financial support to the Taliban, which has only increased in recent months as [the Islamic State] has moved into Afghanistan. Iranian military support, however, began before the invasion, and the lethal assistance continues today to be used against coalition forces. WikiLeaks documents from 2005-06 show that Iran also offered bounties for the murder of members of the Afghan government and NATO soldiers while [Iran’s Islamic] Revolutionary Guard Corps assisted Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a leader of a prominent jihadist group in Afghanistan, to carryout terror attacks.

Iran is even using its own military academies to provide hundreds of Taliban fighters with advanced training, according to reports. Moreover, some high-ranking Taliban leaders even live in Iran.

Iran continues this support while maintaining ties with Kabul, hedging its bets to position itself well for various outcomes inside Afghanistan.

There are many reasons the Islamic Republic supports the Taliban, such as fighting the Islamic State, issues concerning water, and the fact that Afghanistan borders Iran and can pose a threat if unstable, among others. But the most important reason for Washington is that both Iran and the Taliban share an interest in forcing the Americans to leave Afghanistan. Iran is very concerned about American bases in Afghanistan and uses Afghanistan as a way to exert pressure on Washington as needed. If the U.S. wants the war in Afghanistan to end in a peaceful way, it must counter Iran's support to the Taliban—support that perpetuates the conflict.

Analysts and commentators have made several valid arguments about why an American withdrawal from Afghanistan, even a partial one, would carry serious costs. Indeed, one cannot argue that a return to a pre-9/11 Afghanistan, a very real possibility, serves the U.S. well in any way. Another reason less often discussed is that an American retreat—which is the right word to use—would be a victory for Iran.

]]>Venezuela’s Tyrant Gets Six More Yearshttps://freebeacon.com/blog/venezuelas-tyrant-gets-six-more-years/
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 21:25:34 +0000https://freebeacon.com/?post_type=blog&p=1104949Venezuela is in a state of crisis. Tragically, the worst may still be on the way, as the country teeters on the verge of collapse.

]]>Venezuela is in a state of crisis. Tragically, the worst may still be on the way, as the country teeters on the verge of collapse. The International Monetary Fund estimates that, this year, the country's inflation rate will reach an astonishing 10 million percent, while its unemployment rate will go well above 30 percent, hitting 45 percent in 2023. It is all too common to find dying infants and helpless patients in hospitals unable to provide basic services; there is a shortage of around 85 percent of all medicines in the country. Nearly 90 percent of Venezuela's population now lives in poverty, and most Venezuelans are struggling to buy enough food to feed themselves and their families. In fact, more than half of families cannot meet basic food needs, with countless Venezuelans starving. In this environment, crime has become rampant; indeed, more than 73 Venezuelans died a violent death every day in 2017. Caracas, the capital, is consistently ranked as either the most or second most violent city in the world. It is no wonder that, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency and International Organization for Migration, more than three million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2015. Another two million could leave this year.

Amid this chaos, one constant has been President Nicolás Maduro, whose failed socialist policies and authoritarian rule have devastated Venezuela. Rather than empathize with the Venezuelan people and look for new solutions to alleviate their pain, he has cracked down on dissent, brutally torturing protesters and military personnel. He has also jailed opposition activists, and his security forces have carried out hundreds of arbitrary killings. Maduro has, in no uncertain terms, become a tyrant.

And yet, Maduro was sworn in to a second, six-year term on Thursday. He of course did not win through a legitimate exercise of democracy, but through a rigged election. In May, after staving off months of protests and calls for him to step aside, Maduro won his reelection bid, which dozens of countries correctly identified as a sham. Numerous reports of coercion and fraud solidified what was already clear: the Venezuelan people do not want Maduro to be their president.

Of note, Venezuela's Supreme Court, rather than the opposition-controlled National Assembly, swore in Maduro. One judge was missing, however. Christian Zerpa, once an ally of Maduro, recently fled the country. Speaking in Florida this week, he called Maduro's government "disastrous" and "illegitimate."

Minutes after Maduro was inaugurated, most members of Latin America's regional diplomatic body, the Organization of American States, voted "to not recognize the legitimacy" of his government. The United States echoed that sentiment. "The U.S. will not recognize the Maduro dictatorship's illegitimate inauguration," President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, wrote on Twitter. "We will continue to increase pressure on the corrupt regime, support the democratic National Assembly, and call for democracy and freedom in Venezuela."

The United States is one of many countries that have called on Maduro to cede power to the National Assembly, until new elections are held to restore democracy. After Maduro's political rivals won a majority of seats more than three years ago, the president took away the legislative body's powers. He later created a new legislature, the Constituent Assembly, which was stacked with allies of his United Socialist Party and tasked with rewriting the country's constitution.

To Trump's credit, his administration has imposed numerous sanctions against Venezuelan individuals and entities. The sanctions are meant to pressure Maduro to restore democracy and the rule of law. As importantly, administration officials have not shied away from openly criticizing Maduro and his corrupt government.

In Congress, Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) has been a champion for the Venezuelan people, leading the effort within the U.S. government to pressure Maduro. In response, Venezuelans have shown Rubio their appreciation and deep gratitude.

For some reason, however, Democrats in Congress have been largely silent on Venezuela, which should present an opportunity for strong bipartisan action. Rarely does one hear a Democratic leader comment on the country at all, let alone criticize Maduro or praise the bravery of the Venezuelan people. The same goes for liberal activists on college campuses. They need to speak out more. This is not some distant land halfway around the world; Venezuela is only three hours from Miami by plane! And many of the millions who flee from there go to Florida.

Democrats should feel an obligation to speak out against the situation in Venezuela. As the progressive base of the Democratic Party continues to embrace so-called democratic socialism, and as more members of Congress—such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.)—identify as democratic socialists, it is important for them to explain what that means.

Many people blame the collapse in oil prices a few years ago for Venezuela's fall, since the country's revenue from exports is almost totally dependent on oil. But, as I wrote in 2016, "no oil-dependent country–even one like Iraq–is suffering in the same purely economic way as Venezuela is." The price controls, the industry nationalization, the doubling down on Marxist ideas—these are what led to the current situation.

Venezuela is true socialism in action. Someone should tell the democratic socialists.

]]>The Mullahs Are Their Own Worst Enemieshttps://freebeacon.com/blog/mullahs-are-own-worst-enemies/
Wed, 09 Jan 2019 20:46:59 +0000https://freebeacon.com/?post_type=blog&p=1104271Iran's leaders only have themselves to blame for their current troubles.

]]>Last January, six days after anti-government protests erupted across Iran, the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs equated Iranian protesters with the regime forces arresting and killing them. "In the spirit of frankness and respect that is at the basis of our relationship," said Federica Mogherini, "we expect all concerned to refrain from violence and the right of expression to be guaranteed." Mogherini's statement was a slap in the face to the Iranian people, who were demonstrating against the regime that oppresses them so brutally.

It is painful to watch the remarkable lengths to which the EU will go to appease Iran. Sometimes these efforts are shameful, such as Mogherini's response to the protests, and sometimes they are embarrassing, such as when she dons hijabs in Iran. In recent months, the Europeans have tried another ill-advised form of appeasement, working to undermine American sanctions against Iran. The EU has tried to circumvent the penalties, even attempting to create new channels to facilitate payments between Iran and Europe.

So when the EU actually takes coercive action against Iran, the Islamic Republic must have done something so outrageous, so flagrant that even Brussels could not ignore it. Such was the case on Tuesday, when the EU imposed its first sanctions against Iran since the nuclear deal was implemented in January 2016. The new sanctions add Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security and two senior Iranian officials to the EU's terror list over suspicions that they helped organize multiple assassination plots in Europe—specifically plots to bomb a rally of an Iranian opposition group in Paris last year, to kill an Iranian opposition leader in Denmark last year, and to murder two Iranian dissidents in the Netherlands in 2015 and 2017.

Iran had the Europeans in the palm of its hand, and could have continued to use Brussels' naivety and cowardice to its advantage in an attempt to isolate Washington diplomatically. But the ayatollahs could not help themselves—because of their paranoia, because of their twisted Islamist, anti-Western ideology. They had to attempt terrorist attacks and assassinations in Europe—not even the Middle East—to kill dissidents and others who speak out against their oppressive rule. Beyond their troubled psychology and ideology, Iran's leaders are clearly nervous about their regime's future. Otherwise, there would be no need to launch these plots.

Another new development helps illustrate the clerical regime's growing brittleness, as well as its leaders' palpable worries about an uncertain future.

On Sunday, in an unprecedented speech in parliament, an Iranian lawmaker said that Iran's foreign policy has "a lot of unnecessary costs" that can "leave us paralyzed on the streets of Tehran." Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi, a reformist politician, even cited the collapse of the former Soviet Union as a potential risk to the regime.

Iran's government does not have to go on imperialist adventures throughout the Middle East. Frankly, if it did not seek regional preeminence, the regime could probably enjoy dictatorial power at home, with the world little concerned about the Iranian people's terrible suffering. But the Islamic Republic's foreign policy is, at its core, based on ideology, which sees America and Israel as the great enemies.

As Jahanabadi noted, the Iranian people are fed up with the regime's aggressive foreign policy, which takes away much needed resources from domestic needs. There is a reason countless Iranians have been heard chanting for months "No to Gaza, no to Lebanon" and "Leave Syria and think of us."

The U.S. can exploit this unrest by seriously challenging Iran in the region, forcing it to invest more resources into various hotspots. In Syria, for example, Kenneth Pollack has written that "the Iranians are caught in a war that is more costly than they want to bear, but is too important for them to want to leave." Washington does not have to provide many dollars or soldiers—just the will to persevere and a commitment to allies—to make Iran struggle more to achieve its goals. This will further enrage the Iranian people and heighten internal pressure on the regime, which will have to choose between internal stability and foreign-policy goals.

There is evidence that this approach can work. Maj.-Gen. Tamir Heiman, head of the Israel Defense Forces' Intelligence Directorate, said last month that Iran is reducing its presence in Syria due to its unpopularity at home.

This approach, plus politically supporting certain opposition forces and imposing crippling sanctions, is how to push Iran to renegotiate the nuclear deal, the Trump administration's apparent short-term goal—or how to bring down the regime altogether.

Iran can avoid this fate. It does not have to be a serial human rights violator within its own borders or wage unnecessary wars abroad. But the regime, an ideologically driven entity, cannot help itself. Iran's leaders blame Western culture and pressure, internal meddling and imperialism for their current troubles. That is wrong. To find the real culprits, they need to look in the mirror.